97 Responses

most experienced nys workers, like myself, are leaving in droves and preparing to leave ASAP because we are treated like garbage by our managers at the various agencies for which we work. nys officials and their incompent, mean spirited management team should all be ashamed of themselves. now, we all pay the price for their incompetence.
mike

The Governor should get rid of the people who arent working and give the jobs to people who want to work. Ive never been paid to sit around all day and goof off and neither should they. Everyone goofs off here and there when business is a little slow but these people are prepared to work when there is work. Ive never heard of paying someone to goof off every day of the week and every week of the year.

If the state used the state workforce the way that they should use the workforce they would not need a hiring freeze. They give out contracts for work and spend 5 or 10 times what it would cost them to keep the work in house. The people that get the contracts dont care about the work that they have to do just that they have a contract and will be paid by the state no matter how they do the job. There are a lot of contracts with vendors that state employees were doing at a fraction of the price and actually doing the job and not just showing up to collect money. Bottom line is most contractors cost the state millions of dollars for doing a job that state workers could do for a fraction of the price

I totally agree with the governor. we need to pull in the reins. our taxes are very high now and we the public , can not afford to pay the state employees more at this time. like every other job in the public sector, sometimes when business is bad we need to freeze jobs and increases until things get better. the union will have to grin and bear it. we after all, do pay their salaries and we can hardly afford to keep gas in our vehicles right now.

I too am disgusted with how New York State has turned out. The pork keeps going up, the taxes are through the roof and citizens are leaving in droves. Until every New Yorker votes both Bruno and Silver out of office New York will never thrive. These two think New York State’s money belongs to them to do as they wish, not what the taxpayers want. What happened to the good old days of fundraising when schools or an organization needed something, no the new solution is to raise taxes. I am not a parent, and don’t oppose paying some taxes, but I’m sick of my school taxes going through the roof while parents of kids attending the schools don’t pay. Unless someone’s rent totals my school tax bill yearly don’t say they pay the same, because they don’t. Also, lets see what the benefits equal for School employees, how come that is never listed, like when CSEA and PEF settled on their agreements. How much do they pay for health insurance, dental, vision. Everyone is quick to jump on the State Workers, and I agree there are a lot of people who are in wasteful jobs, but if your going to list them, list them all. Then we need to include all the Political Patronage jobs and Legislative jobs. Why are our Legislators (part-time employees at best), getting the salary they are. This is the biggest waste of taxpayer dollars. Must be nice to rake in all that money and also hold a part-time job elsewhere with all the extra benefits.

New York State needs to get rid of the Pork totally for the next 5 – 10 years. Take back all the money that hasn’t been spent, where projects haven’t even started from money promised years ago and use it all to pay down State Debt. Then when the balances are in the black, devise a new system for projects that truly merit funding. Stop saying “Don’t Touch” New York and Long Island when pulling money back from Pet Projects.

Try consolidating a few Agencies (Parks and Rec and DEC)(OCFS, DFA and OTDA). Get rid of the Public Authorities, who have absolutely no accountability and put there services under the state agencies.

Better yet, set up a web-site where New York State Taxpayers can submit suggestions for saving money. Who knows, maybe there is someone smarter than everyone in power who may just have a system.

Better yet, trying spending only the money, New York State has on the books and stop overspending.

#24, you work for us regardless if you’re a taxpayer. I guess, then you work for yourself too. When times are tough, you should expect to see cut backs. If you don’t want to be beholden to taxpayers, go work in the private sector like I do. I have no guarantees or union to back me up.

If you want to work for the taxpayers of NYS, then you must accept the responsibility you have. You’ve displyed that sense of entitlement that mystifies me still. Every stateworker (good and bad) I know has the same mindset. And the excuse is always the same, “We pay taxes too”. It doesn’t matter, if you pay taxes, you should hate waste and corruption just as much as me.

Why not cut the salary of the legislature? They all make about 20% or more, more then any other legislature in the US. Get some people in the legislature that want to do their job instead of work when they want to. They all make more then most State workers and they only work PART TIME!! Doesn’t seem right to me!?!?
It would be niec to get the promotion I was told I would get three years ago working for my agency. Still waiting…and waiting….and waiting.

why not take money from places like welfare programs that just seem to fail. ny should try a welfare to work program..but wait, that might require hiring some state workers. and i agree with the person who made the point that so many of us have recently paid for and taken civil service exams to be able to work for the state. if there is a freeze..we should get that money back

The barbs and jibes thrown at NYS workers by the citizens of NYS are NOTHING compared to the daily examples of disrespect and verbal harassment which we NYS employees are clobbered with by our own mean-spirited and vindictive supervisors at the various NYS agencies. I (and many, many more NYS workers such as me) wholeheartedly agree with Comment #31 by our NYS worker collegue, Mike, that long-time NYS workers are just counting the days until they can retire and get away from the ridiculously incompetent and mean-spirited agency managers, who make the NYS work place so demeaning and dehumanizing. “Momma, don’t let your sons (and daughters) grow up to be NYS civil servants”
It is a well-known fact that a happy and well-treated workforce is very productive. NYS workers are NOT a happy work force nor are we well-treated. Wish that somebody up in Albany would just connect those dots…

I think instead of putting a freeze on hiring, get rid of the poor management in NYS and the workers who take up space and political favor employee’s. There is so much of that going on in the state. Hire people who really go in and do the work they hired to do

Time for the Governor to start with salaries of his appointees and set or reset their salaries to some realistic levels. Do not put the burden on the working rank and file.

Maybe we could also look at the uncollected tuition payments of the State colleges and Universities. The media should consider looking at the source of the unpaid tuition and fees and how to better collect on the outstanding debts including those of foreign students too!

#37, That first senseless statement works both ways. If I purchase your product or use your service, then you work for me. Sounds dumb, I know, but no more so than your statement. I’m sorry you don’t have a union to back you up, but don’t hold it against me that I do, especially when our unions lack one of the pivotal rights private sector unions have, to go on strike.

A far as a “sense of entitlement”, I’ve displayed no such thing. I’ve only expressed my irritation of those who paint all state workers with the single brush of lazy do-nothings, when most of us are quite the opposite; and those who speak of taxpayers and state workers as if they’re two completely separate entities.

“If you pay taxes, you should hate waste and corruption just as much as me.” Faulty grammar aside, I do hate those things as much as you do, and I’ve said nothing to suggest otherwise.

As #29 pointed out, everyone wants the services, but no one wants to pay for them. As staff levels drop, so will some services, then people will complain about that. There’s no pleasing “you” taxpayers.

It’s absolutely amazing to read all of the comments on here from people that are totally ignorant of the services that are provided every day by the state workforce, complaining that they are overpaid and do little to no work, or that our unions are in the wrong for trying to win benefits or raises for us.

First and foremost, let’s start with benefits. What benefits do we get that people in private industry don’t get? We get health insurance and a pension, vacation, sick, and personal time, and holidays off. Other than an private employer perhaps only doing a 401k (to which they still contribute matching funds usually) instead of a pension plan, do we get anything special? I doubt it. While yes, those that work a low wage job without any skills or education are going to complain we get holidays off and they don’t, most people in any type of skilled profession will work for a business that also has the similar holidays – ever heard of a bank open on July 4th? I haven’t. I’d even go so far as to say that many businesses will even do more for their employees than the state does. If you work for a private employer, does your company pay for the company Christmas party every year, or at least contribute to it? Most do. My employer however, does not. Why? Because some taxpayer is going to whine about it, even though their employer did it for them. What’s good for the goose is not good for the gander in that type of persons eyes, because it’s “their” tax money being spent, even though they have no issue accepting the same thing from the business they work for.

Let’s look at salaries now. So many here have complained the state workforce is overpaid. Have you bothered to compair the salary schedules for a state worker with the same profession in private industry? Of course not, because that would be too much work for someone who complains about people who are “overpaid and underworked”. Let me sum it up for you:

According to Salary.com, an entry level computer programmer/analyst is paid a median salary of just over $50,000. This does not include benefits. That same job with the state, an Information Technology Specialist I, a grade 14 position pays $37,314 at the 2008 PEF grade 14 pay rate for an entry level employee. After 7 years in the job, at the current payscale, that same employee would earn $47,422. So if by working for a private employer you will make more money your first year than you would at the top of the payscale for the state, why would you work there? Is it any wonder why the state cannot fill these positions with quality employees?

Let’s take another common position with the state: A secretary.
Salary.com lists the starting salary of someone in a secretary position to be in the mid $30s range (the graph on this one doesn’t give an exact figure). What’s the starting salary for a Secretary I position with the state? The grade 11 CSEA represented position will earn $34,095 for 2008. The pay for these positions is just about on par with private industry, but these folks certainly are not getting rich by working for the state by any means. Seriously, should they be paid minimum wage to do this job? Let’s also not forget the countless offices in the state where they use grade 9 clerical staff for the secretary instead of the correct title. This happens quite a bit where I work, and these folks only have a starting salary of $30,483 to do the same job as some high level directors secretary who got a grade 11 or even a grade 15 Secretary II position because their boss has the pull to get that pay for them.

That illustrates the real problem with the state workforce. Overpaid and overly coddled management. Just so all the union bashers know, since I realize many of you are completely uneducated about this, these people are mainly political appointees who earn well over $100,000 a year, and are NOT represented by unions. Ever heard the phrase “Too many chiefs, not enough indians”? This is the largest issue facing the state payroll. Management that does nothing but play politics all day long, with no idea how the work actually gets done, then implementing a “bright” idea to change something that work to something that doesn’t. And of course it takes 5 or 10 of these $100,000+ managers to come up with this idea.

So the next time you are standing in line in downtown Albany, waiting for 2 hours before you get to talk the the clerk at the DMV to get a license (these folks see 100+ people a day), or you wait on hold for an hour with the Tax Department to check the status of your tax refund (these folks talk to 100+ people a day on the phone), or a bridge falls off of it’s piers because it wasn’t inspected, or wait for half an hour for a State Trooper to show up to the scene of a car accident, or countless other issues, just remember that you wanted to cut the state workforce and feel they are overpaid and underworked.

When the state government stops spending more money that it takes in, and then stops paying down the debt that it has accumlated over the years, there may just be enough money to finally balance the budget AND provide all of the services we need, and perhaps even cut taxes. Remember, a large portion of the budget goes towards debt service. It doesn’t take a genius to figure this stuff out, but apparently the legislators must all take the little bus into the Capitol each day.

I agree with everyone calling for cuts in the legislators’ salaries. They’re quick to cut or freeze civil service jobs, but continue giving themselves pay increases for part time jobs, loaded with all sorts of perks. If they want to keep loading up the budget with garbage, let them pay for it out of their own pockets.

Oh, and neither Mike #31 nor John V. #40 speak for all of us state workers. In my many years with the state, I have yet to meet one coworker with the hatred for a supervisor that John describes. I feel bad for you guys, but stop acting like your experience fits us all.

Just to point out: Bridge inspectors are generally professional engineers. While a “construction” inspector generally isn’t. Did you have a PE come out and inspect your home while it was being built? Doubtful. So if the state is to do this, does that mean that the state is going to send all of these folks to RPI or Clarkson to get their degree and then pay for them to take the PE exam? Brilliant idea! Let’s waste more money!

As a “state worker”, I feel inclined to disagree with many of these statements made by other state workers who are so obviously filled with hatred and disgust. A private company does NOT provide nearly 100 hours of annual leave a year (and that’s IF you have less than 7 years of service – after that it’s almost 150 hours), nearly 100 hours of sick leave, 37.5 hours of personal leave, paid holidays, 2 floating holidays, deferred comp, a retirement system you don’t even have to contribute to after 10 years, vacation buy-back, tuition assistance, excused leave time for blood donation, attendance at cultural events, no dress code, etc. The list goes ON AND ON!! All that, and all any of us is ever required to work is 37.5 hours a week when your precious private companies can work 50-60 hours a week if their boss needs them to.

Are you people kidding me?? We’ve got it made. It is unreal to me the sense of entitlement that state workers have developed because of the likes of Danny Donahue and Ken Brynien. So you have to buck up and not take your 15 minute break 3 times a day and do some work. Heaven forbid!! Guess what people??? When those private companies deal with layoffs and mass firings due to the economy, you’ll still be sitting pretty. Why? Because all this Governor is asking is that you buckle down and pitch in. So you may have to do a little work that is “outside of your job description” – Boo freaking hoo! I can tell you that I am VERY thankful for my job. VERY thankful for the lifestyle I am fortunate enough to lead because I work for the State and the most thankful that I feel completely content in not lumping myself with a bunch of sniveling, whiny brats who cry foul everytime someone looks at them funny and files a greivance. Lets not even discuss how when a civil servant is insubordinate, they get a slap on the wrist because their shop steward defends them. Some of them are actually allowed to retire for looking at porn, rather than be fired. I ask that you find any company in the private sector that would put up with some of this union nonsense.

It is these people that give working for the state a bad name, and making it the joke that it has become. I applaud the Governor for setting this tone in the agencies rather than laying off people, and I am very grateful for that.

By the way, #12 – ever think of answering your own phone? This is 2008, not 1950.

I am a State employee and I also despise wasted spending. I, like many of my counterparts make a daily effort to try to save the State money where I can. We look for lower prices on commodities we purchase. I drive to meetings, instead of flying.

For those writers complaining about corrupt employees, the State has a method dealing with it. You can make a report to the Investigator General’s office. For more information, visit their web site at http://www.ig.state.ny.us/information/faqs.html I am just as happy to see them get fired as you are.

A lot of people think we get everything for free. All State workers pay a portion of our health insurance. I personally pay about $2600 per year. I realize that is not bad compared with many, but there are also many professionals in the private sector who still get free health insurance. My payment happens to be one of the lower ones because of the plan I choose. All of the costs are available for anyone to see on the Civil Service web site.

Pretty much everything about the cost of a State employee is public information, free to read on the internet. That does not hold true for the political appointees which some how show up after every election. Even tougher is to find the cost of the consultants we hire to do the same work. If they are cheaper for the same work, by all means, bring them on. But before we do, let’s make sure we are getting a better value for our money.

I don’t pretend to know a whole heck of a lot about this, but I do know that yes, stateworkers did just get a raise. But immediately following the announcement, union dues went up, parking fees went up, not to mention the price of gas, and yes, even the cigarettes I smoke to keep my level of anxiety in check for not having enough money to pay for all this have gone up $1.25. (That’s a whole other subject) I totally agree that cuts need to be made in state spending, but am not sure cutting jobs is the way to go. Perhaps we should start looking at exactly what the agencies are spending our taxpayer monies on. How about starting by looking at what the appointed executives are spending to make their little homes away from home “pretty”. Why is it executives get to put their “executive seats” in nice leather chairs that cost hundreds of dollars while the rest of us little people get to put “out seats” in chairs that have been around for years. Not that I mind my “seat” being in an old chair….it’s fine. But the executives’ “seats” are no better then mine. It’s high time the executives live at work the way we all do. They are no better then me or any other member of the NYS workforce…..they just make a lot more money then I do. Go ahead state workers, go check out your executive floor. See what the taxpayers are paying for. AND, no offense to Governor Paterson, but how much are all the new pictures of the Governor that are hanging in the agencies costing. $100 a piece; $150 a piece. I went to Christmas Tree Shoppe and bought frames for pictures of my grandchildren. They cost me about $10 a piece and look just as nice. It may not sound like a lot of money, but if you multiply all the new portraits times all the agencies, and all the leather chairs for all the agencies, and all the other “decorations” for all the agencies, I bet it adds up to a whole bunch of taxpayers’ money. Of course, in the words of comedian Dennis Miller, “that’s just my opinion, I could be wrong.”

#49, I’m glad your state job is so cushy that you can thuumb your nose at the many more who aren’t living in the lap of luxury you seem to be enjoying, but I’ll respond only to your closing question, since you apparently know my work situation more than I do.

I do answer my own phone, and I give out the number quite often so return calls come directly to me, which is a whole lot more than some others do. The secretary phone is the number that’s published for the general public. If I had to answer that one all the time, I’d have little time for my actual work. Responding to the generic and redundant questions was part of the secretary’s job. Now, all calls to that phone go to voice mail and we sometimes have to pick and choose which ones we respond to, because we don’t have the staff member dedicated to answer them all.

It’s just one example where a loss of staff has a direct negative impact of service, but I guess you wouldn’t understand that up in your penthouse.

We’ve been told a recession is coming, now a state hiring freeze, this state is overtaxed on everything, and they are handing out taxpayer dollars for NEW APPROPRIATIONS??? 101 million dollars worth……HOLY $h!*

Post #49 says “buckle down and pitch in”, I don’t disagree, but that means EVERYONE, included in that would be the handing out of our taxpayer money to appease groups so our leaders can be re-elected, that’s all some of those appropriations amount too, groups pressure and whine to get money for their special needs, gee that sounds familiar…….UNIONS DO THE SAME THING FOR THEIR EMPLOYEES, so before we ask state workers to buckle down, why don’t you ask all these special groups to PRIVATELY fund their own Communtiy centers, Pop warner programs and National Soccer Hall of Fame museum(100,000).

“DO AS I SAY, NOT AS I DO” should be the motto of this state, because that is what our Senate & Assembly members are saying.

Yes, there most definitely should be a state hiring freeze. One agency that should be looked at is the Workers’ Compensation Board. There are hundreds of attorneys working in this agency with jobs that surmount to glorified clerical workers. They are grossly overpaid and most of them do outside legal work. They come to the state and get some easy hack job in order for them to get the benefits and timeoff. Most of them are doing outside legal work, which should be considered a conflict of interest. This agency needs to be downsized. There are numerous grade 18, 23 and management confidential jobs that also surmount to glorified clerical work. These people are grossly overpaid and it is all a waste of tax payer money.

I would like to see correctional facility products be brought out into free enterprise markets. Perhaps the creation of paper mills, having auto body work introduced, and other manufacturing facets may be examples. New York was once a manufacturing giant. It needs to replace a services oriented provider.

You must be a director or something, especially complaining about employees filing grievances, and you must be upset you can’t get things done “your way” because the union protects us from schmucks like you so we CAN do our jobs properly…

Just as an FYI…

149.5 hours of Annual Leave after 7 years of work is 4 weeks of vacation. This is not uncommon in the private sector after the same number of years working…

97.5 hours of Sick Leave is about 2 1/2 weeks of sick time. Again, this is not uncommon after many years of service in the private sector.

A week of Personal Time – ditto.

I do agree that the two floating holidays we get are something unusual. However, some of the other benefits you discuss – tuition reimbursement, a lax or business casual dress code… are also standard practice outside state agencies.

As far as other “benefits”…

Deferred Comp – just in case you don’t use it, it’s totally funded by the employees contributions. This doesn’t cost the state a dime.

Vacation buy-backs? Wanna show me that one? Never heard of it. We can trade off some of our time to help pay for our health insurance, and we do get paid for our unused vacation when we separate from service, but don’t the majority of employers pay for unused EARNED vacation time when you leave the job?

Time off for “cultural events”? When did the state start paying me to attend the opera? This is news to me!

Time off for donating blood… Wow, doing this does no good for the public… Oh, wait… Yeah it does, I forgot.

As far as not paying into our pensions anymore after 10 years… Lest I forget, wasn’t that because our pension fund is way over funded at this point and those funds are no longer needed? Maybe you should complain to H. Carl McCall for doing his job as the trustee too well during his years in office.

Honestly, if you don’t like your union (if you are in one and not M/C like most director level scum), then quit the union and pay the shop fee.

If you don’t like the benefits and feel you get too much, quit your job and work at McDonalds.

There are too many people out there like you on their soapboxes screaming about union this and union that. Unions built this country to be what it is today. Our parents and grandparents wouldn’t have been as well off as they were without them, and now that they are starting to fade away in most private businesses many people in the middle class are feeling squeezed again while corporate profits continue to rise and corporate executives get paid fat bonuses for no real work or even just to leave the company.

You are certainly not a very good representative of state employees. You don’t even have your facts straight. As far as your salary rantings – see my above posting. That might shed some light on things for you.

Check the Civil Service and GOER websites. Civil Service shows 56 Senior Attorneys and 12 Associate Attorneys working for the WCB. No where near the “hundreds” you claim. At grade 25 and grade 28 respectively, they are making no where near the over $100k salaries private attorneys command. When you come out of law school with over $150k in student loans, a $66,000 a year starting salary for a grade 25 doesn’t look so good now, does it. No wonder why they practice on the side. And with an agency like the WCB who has to fight false Comp claims left and right, they actually DO need to have these attorneys on staff I’m sure. Because without them, who’d defend against the lawyers looking for huge settlements and then taking a huge cut of the settlement won for someone who can work, but just chooses not to… Again, taking tax dollars from things that are actually needed. But lets just lay off half of these folks and just pay the claims instead. I’m sure it would be cheaper in a state as large as New York.

I like that idea. There is no reason why CorCraft could not ramp up production and try to become a money making entity instead of just supplying state agencies. It’s a great way to create a new revenue stream for the state, and it could keep more inmates out of trouble by giving them something more to do then join the prison gangs and shank each other.

I’d also think that it may be a good idea to start suspending licenses/vehicle registrations of those who do not pay their taxes, just as is done with Child Support. Based on figures from the Tax Department, there is quite a bit of tax money that goes unpaid every year, and apparently sometimes their other tactics like garnishments are not enough to get these deadbeats to pay their fair share. This might just motivate them to do so just a little more.